The Best Life Diet Cookbook: More than 175 Delicious, Convenient, Family-Friendly Recipes (Hardcover)

by Bob Greene (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A good meal is one of life's great pleasures, but we all know that it can be difficult to choose foods that make us happy and keep us healthy. In his New York Times bestselling book The Best Life Diet, Bob Greene showed more than a million people that you can lose weight and eat delicious food. Now, in The Best Life Diet Cookbook he provides more than 175 recipes that taste as good as they are good for you.

With recipes like Flank Steak with Potatoes and Garlic and Sweet-and-Sour Stuffed Chicken, it isn't hard to eat well while shedding pounds. Slimmed-down comfort foods like Sweet Potato with Turkey Hash and Beef Stew with Winter Root Vegetables make family dinners satisfying and healthful. Rotisserie Chicken Salad with Oranges and Pistachios comes together in a snap. Or try one of the recipes contributed by world-class chefs like Charlie Trotter or Suzanne Goin, adapted to fit the Best Life guidelines. Craving something sweet? You won't believe that Pear and Banana Crisp and Apple Pie with Oatmeal Crust are low in fat and calories.

Also included are three sets of two-week meal plans: The Quick and Easy Plan for when you're most time-pressed; The Family-Friendly Plan with meals to satisfy the whole gang; and The Kitchen Connoisseur Plan for those looking for more of a challenge in the kitchen. Whether you're trying to drop some pounds or simply want to maintain your weight, these plans do all the calorie-calculating for you.

The Best Life Diet Cookbook is full of useful shopping tips and culinary information. Illustrated with dozens of beautiful black-and-white and color photographs, it is a book you will turn to again and again.

Bob Greene firmly believes that every meal should be a celebration both of the pleasures of food and your commitment to living your best possible life, and with The Best Life Diet Cookbook, you can reclaim your joy of eating and live the life you deserve.

About the Author
Bob Greene is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer specializing in fitness, metabolism, and weight loss. He holds a master's degree from the University of Arizona and is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise. For the past seventeen years he has worked with clients and consulted on the design and management of fitness, spa, and sports medicine programs. Bob has been a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He is also a contributing writer and editor for O the Oprah magazine, and writes articles on health and fitness for Oprah.com. Greene is the bestselling author of The Best Life Diet Cookbook, The Best Life Diet, Revised and Updated, The Best Life Diet, The Best Life Diet Daily Journal, The Total Body Makeover, Get With the Program!, The Get With the Program! Daily Journal, The Get With the Program! Guide to Good Eating, and Make the Connection.

John J. Merendino Jr., M.D. is a graduate of Yale Medical School. He did his internship and residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and his endocrine training at the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Merendino is board-certified in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism, is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the George Washington Univeristy School of Medicine, has published scientific papers in major medical journals, and has 20 years of experience in caring for people with diabetes. 

Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D., is the lead nutritionist for thebestlife.com, Bob Greene's weight loss and fitness website.  She is also a contributing editor for Self Magazine and freelances for other national magazines. Her latest books are The Supermarket Diet and The Supermarket Diet Cookbook.  In her private practice, she specializes in weight loss and eating disorders.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (December 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416588337
• ISBN-13: 978-1416588337
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,472 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Exercise & Fitness > By Trainer
  #1 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Authors, A-Z > Greene, Bob
  #5 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Low Cholesterol

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Healthy food, healthy life, January 8, 2009

By	Julie Neal "The Complete Walt Disney World" (Sanibel Island, Fla.) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Best-life advocate Bob Greene positions the ideas in this cookbook as a "gift that you give to yourself and your loved ones." Home-cooked meals made from fresh, natural ingredients will make you feel better, live longer and bond with your family and friends. Makes sense to me. And if you just want to cook yummy foods, these dishes are delicious.

They are also nutritious, and all the details for each serving are at the end of each recipe: calories, protein, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, sugar, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, calcium and sodium.

Easy-to-follow meal plans are broken down into three sections. Quick and Easy meals take no more than 20 minutes to prepare, Kitchen Connoisseur choices are a little more adventurous, and Family-Friendly meals offer healthy versions of family favorites. Each meal plan has six calorie levels: 1,500, 1,600, 1,700, 1,800, 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day.

Although most of the recipes are geared to busy families with little time to spend in the kitchen, there is a whole chapter of wonderful, healthy dishes from accomplished chefs. These recipes may take a little longer than the 30 minutes or so the other recipes require to prepare. Some of the chefs participating include Mollie Ahlstrand of Trattoria Mollie, Dan Barber of Blue Hill, Sarma Melngailis of Pure Food and Wine, Charlie Trotter of Charlie Trotter's and Roy Yamaguchi of the 35 Roy's Restaurants around the world. Ahlstrand's Zuppa di Pomodoro is a flavorful take on tomato soup that uses garlic, brandy, rosemary and orange juice.

In the back is a handy Techniques tutorial showing how to roast garlic, toast nuts, section citrus, clarify butter and the like.

Other good choices for healthy cookbooks include Deceptively Delicious, Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World and The Most Decadent Diet Ever.

The Eat This Not That! series is also excellent.

Here's the chapter list:
1. Introduction
2. Recipes
3. Breakfast
4. Soups
5. Salads
6. Sandwiches, Wraps and Crispbreads
7. Entrees: Meat, Poultry, Seafood, Vegetarian
8. Side Dishes: Grains, Vegetables
9. Calcium-Rich Snacks
10. Desserts
11. Best-Life Recipes from World-Class Chefs
12. Meal Plans
13. Basic Recipes
14. Techniques

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best Maybe But Maybe Too Exotic, February 11, 2009

By	Sacramento Book Review "SacramentoBookReview.com" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

Buffalo with Blackberries, anyone? Quinoa Granola? How about Salad of Riesling-Poached Tokyo Turnips with Brussels Sprouts, Pickled French Laundry Garden Onion, and Toasted Mustard Seed Emulsion? Bob Greene's "The Best Life Diet Cookbook", designed to be used in tandem with his wildly popular "The Best Life Diet" has the best and healthiest of intentions, but isn't a terribly great resource for anyone short on time or money or with a family of potentially picky little ones--in other words, a good portion of the population. Greene's philosophy of cooking and eating is a solid one; he firmly believes that "eating is meant to be one of life's great pleasures," and that "many of us have lost that special connection with the experience of eating...." The purpose of this books is to help readers "reclaim the experience of eating as a celebration by sitting down to enjoy these high-quality, delicious dishes without overdoing it." So far, so good.

The recipes, however, split into ten different categories that include Breakfast, Entrees, Side Dishes, and Desserts, overwhelmingly seem geared towards the young, the hip, and the unencumbered, not the average workaday American with 2.5 kids. While there may be a silent majority of working families who are beside themselves with joy to come home from a hard day at work to partake of Tofu Mushroom Scramble on a Whole Wheat Tortilla or Baked Eggplant with Ground Beef, they certainly keep themselves well hidden. And, even if Duck with Plums or Broiled Mahimahi with Grapes and Leeks seems like a winner, the price of the ingredients can often prove prohibitive in these days of the not-so-great economy.

Greene does acknowledge that different Best Life Dieters have different needs, and two of the three two-week full meal plans he includes in the back of the book, the Quick and Easy Meal Plan and the Family-Friendly Plan (the third is the Kitchen Connoisseur plan), are geared for the busy and the child-overwhelmed. The Family-Friendly Plan incorporates favorites like Sloppy Joes and Shepherd's Pie, but leaves the reader wondering why a person would purchase a book containing chiefly recipes of the Cauliflower Curry with Red Lentils variety if they are planning on cooking the Chicken Noodle soup.

That said, there is no doubt that Greene's recipes are nutritious, low-calorie, palate-expanding, and a real find for devoted food enthusiasts looking to expand their kitchen repertoire.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The very best life diet cookbook, January 30, 2009

By	L. Demro (Illinois) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I could not wait for my book to arrive as I was just starting a new eating plan that was devised for me through a dietician. The book arrived and I was immediately disappointed as the recipes were mostly things that I would never eat and the recipes were not made with ingredients that most people have on hand. I am not saying it is a bad book by any means I am just saying that it was not at all what I expected and I have no use for it.